


Making the right choice until it hurts

by Anathema Device (notowned)



Series: More Strong than Time [3]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-20 12:12:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10662333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notowned/pseuds/Anathema%20Device
Summary: Aramis asks his friends what to do about his previously unknown son. They give him the advice with both barrels.





	Making the right choice until it hurts

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't really a story so much as a little bridge between stories that started as a background to other plot ideas I've been mulling, and which I decided to turn into a ficlet. So, it's got no plot and very little action. Sorry :(

“So, I need your advice.”

“Sure,” d’Artagnan said, smiling at Aramis. “But why us?”

Aramis had invited Constance and d’Artagnan to lunch at _Le_ _Roitelet_ because he felt they were the best people to ask, and it was far too personal to discuss at work. “You two lost your fathers relatively recently.”

“Is this about the surprise son?” Constance’s lips pursed almost to invisibility. “Why aren’t you talking to Sylvie?”

“I have! She knows I’m meeting you. It was her idea.”

“Oh. Okay.” Constance relaxed.

“Fill me in?” d’Artagnan asked her.

“Aramis had a one night stand with a married woman, whose husband then died six years later. Now she’s popped up to say her six-year-old isn’t the son of her late husband, and therefore must be Aramis’s.”

D’Artagnan’s brown eyes went wide. “Wow. That’s a lot to dump in someone’s lap.”

“It is,” Aramis said miserably. “Sylvie’s cross at Ana, we’re both worried about revealing this to the boy, and I don’t know if I want to play papa to another man’s son, even if I’m the biological parent.”

“You haven’t met?” Constance said.

“Hardly had a chance. We only got back from the Dordogne a week ago, remember. I’ve exchanged a couple of emails with Ana just to establish the ground rules. She’s not looking for child support. Her husband was Louis de Bourbon.”

“Holy fuck,” d’Artagnan said, while Constance stared at Aramis in shock.

“I know.”

“So why do you need us?” d’Artagnan asked.

Aramis scratched his head. “Sylvie thinks that telling the boy I’m his real father is a bad idea.”

“Well, duh,” d’Artagnan said, squinting at Aramis. “You need us to tell you that?”

“And you don’t think that his recent loss of his father makes it a better idea?”

“Aramis, are you barking mad?” Aramis raised his eyebrows at Constance. “The father of that little boy was Louis, not you. You’re a sperm donor.”

“Yes, but—”

“No but,” d’Artagnan snapped. “Listen, if you walked up to me now and said my dad wasn’t my biological dad, and you’re my real father, I’d punch you down, then kick you in the nuts. My dad was _Dad_.”

Constance’s glare was a match for d’Artagnan’s. “Absolutely.”

“Did you really need us to tell you that? For fuck’s sake, Aramis.”

“If this woman needed child support, then of course you need to give her that. But since she doesn’t, what are you hoping to achieve?”

Aramis gave Constance a weak smile. “I don’t know. Consolation?”

“For him or you? You have a child now. You don’t need this poor little boy, who can’t possibly understand all the emotional implications, to validate your testicles.”

“Constance!”

“Well, is it more than that?”

“I want to help him. Offer him guidance as an adult man in his life.”

“And you do that how? I mean without reopening a relationship with his mother and I’m telling you now that if you do that, you’re no longer a friend of mine.”

D’Artagnan’s expression said his feelings were much the same.

“Guys, I have no interest in Ana sexually—”

“Uh huh,” d’Artagnan said.

“Yeah, really,” Constance added.

“You don’t trust me.”

“Not particularly on this,” Constance said. “Aramis, I love you to death, but Porthos and Athos both agree that you used to think far too much with little Aramis. The fact you had unprotected sex with this woman and got her pregnant tells me you’re not sensible.”

“Hang on, you and Jacques—”

Aramis didn’t realise Constance could look that angry. “Ooh, you bastard, that was different. Jacques wasn’t married, we were in a stable relationship, and I took the risk quite knowingly. So did he.” She slammed the table. “This woman is recently widowed, you fancied her before, you have poor impulse control when it comes to pretty things, and are you really going to tell me that you can be _friends_ with her for the sake of a boy you know to be your son? Completely altruistically?”

“Of course I can.”

********************

“Nah, mate. You’re fooling yourself.”

Aramis folded his arms and scowled at his best friend. “No one has any faith in my sexual continence.”

“We ain’t seen much to judge it by,” Porthos said. “You’ve been good with Sylvie, but that’s because you ain’t had any real temptation. This pretty rich widow with the cute little boy she says is yours? Is temptation with a capital ’T’. Garden of Eden stuff.”

“Now I’m insulted.”

Porthosshrugged. “Then don’t ask questions you don’t want honest answers for. If the kid was twenty-five, thirty, and this Ana was a lot older, and so were you, there’s a small chance you could do this without fucking it up. I love you like a brother. Exactly like a brother. And as a brother, I gotta say—don’t.”

“So I just reject this boy to protect my relationship with Sylvie.”

Porthos poked him in the chest, which bloody hurt, damn it. “You keep away from this boy for the boy’s sake, Berthe’s sake, and Sylvie’s. And your own. You’ll eat your heart out if you form a bond with him and he rejects you, or you don’t see him enough or whatever. Constance is right. You’re a sperm donor, not a father. I’m sure you donated pretty good genes and great looks to the kid. That’s enough.”

“You could walk away?”

“Yeah, mate, I could.”

“But you’ve never been a father.”

Porthos’s face went stony. “I ain’t never had one neither. Still doesn’t make me wrong. If someone strolled into my life now and said ‘hey, I fucked your mum thirty years ago, I’m your dad’, I’d tell him to fuck off. Being a dad isn’t just poking it in and getting her pregnant.”

“I suppose not.”

“S’pose you were infertile and Sylvie used a sperm donor, and you died when Berthe was six. Would you want someone stranger rolling up to your little girl and claiming to be her dad?”

“No.” Aramis sighed. “And that’s it in a nutshell. I’ll contact Ana and say unless the boy needs medical information or an organ donor, we won’t be involved.”

“That’s the way to go. Sucks to be the kid, but he just lost his daddy. Sucks for him anyway.”

“Yes. I’ll pray for him.”

Porthos smiled. “Can’t hurt.”

********************

Aramis told Sylvie what he’d decided, and she smiled. “Thank God. I didn’t want to insist, but it’s the right thing. I’m so sorry for the little boy though.”

“Me too. But I need to concentrate on the one kid I really am a father to.”

“You do. And as it happens, that kid needs changing.” She handed Berthe over. 

“What, again?” Aramis peered into his daughter’s blue eyes which would eventually turn brown like those of her parents. “You are becoming a poo factory, my sweet darling.”

“And will be one for about three years, I believe,” Sylvie said. “So, off you go.”

“I’ll email Ana when I’m done.”

“Yes, good idea.”

“I hope he doesn’t hate me in years to come. I don’t want him to think I didn’t want to get to know him.”

She followed him into the nursery. “Why don’t you write him a letter telling him how you feel, and your reasons? And give it to Ana to give to him if it’s ever appropriate. When he’s a grown man, things will be different. He might be interested then and mature enough to handle it. Or not.”

Aramis paused in the process of undoing the nappy, and leaned over to kiss her. “You are kind and wise, oh best beloved.”

“I am. And married to someone who’s not that bad himself. Hurry up. I’ve been looking forward to my Aramis time.”

He essayed an elegant bow. “As my lady wishes.”


End file.
